Page 58 of Aiden & Lily

Aiden searched her face. Relief should have been the first thing he felt. Instead, her disappointment settled heavily in his chest.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Jason seems to be helping.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have as much pull.” Lily glanced back toward the chaos. “And if we put this on Mathew’s shoulders right now, I’m afraid he’d react badly.”

Aiden’s jaw tightened. Why did those words hurt so dang much? They sliced through him in ways he hadn’t been prepared for. It was one thing to believe he wasn’t good enough by himself. But now that Lily was admitting she thought Mathew felt the same?

She must have noticed because her expression shifted. “That came out wrong.”

“Did it?” he asked.

“Aiden.” She reached for his hand. “I only mean he’s already dealing with a lot. When Mathew gets protective, he doesn’t always think before he speaks.”

Aiden let her take his hand, though the ache in his chest didn’t fully ease. He knew what Mathew thought of him. He’d made that clear enough. Still, hearing Lily suggest Mathew might react badly stirred up every old insecurity Aiden had tried to ignore.

“If he told you to stop seeing me, would you?”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“If Mathew told you I wasn’t good enough for you.” Aiden swallowed. “Would that change anything?”

Lily stared at him for a moment, then tightened her hold on his hand. “I’d listen to what he had to say because he’s family. But I’d make that decision for myself.”

Aiden searched her face.

“And I already know how I feel about you,” she added softly. “Mathew doesn’t get to decide that.”

Something in his chest loosened.

Lily stepped closer. “But I do want us to tell him soon. I don’t like hiding this.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t want there to always be another reason to wait.”

Aiden glanced toward the party, where Mathew and the others were still trying to calm everyone down.

“Today probably isn’t the right time,” he admitted. “But I know we can’t keep putting it off.”

She studied him for a second, then nodded. “Okay.”

He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Aiden wanted to believe that would be enough to settle him. But even with Lily beside him, some part of him still expected everything to fall apart the moment the truth came out.

A throbbing ache in his chest had him pressing his knuckles to the spot if only to distract him with a different kind of pressure. Even though he had the girl. Even though his brother was rooting him on.

Aiden couldn’t help but feel more alone in this moment than any others that he could remember in his past. And he was beginning to realize that waiting wasn’t protecting what they had.

It was only going to make the fall harder.

16

LILY

“Oh, boy. What did he do?”

Lily lifted her head to see Jasmine’s head poke into her bedroom. “What?”

Her twin entered fully and waved a finger in Lily’s general direction. “That face. Something happened. You look… miserable.”